Contaminated-water leakage adds to Japan’s nuclear cleanup problems

Nature : Earlier this month some 300 tons of radioactive water leaked from holding tanks into the soil surrounding Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was damaged two years ago by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. The water had been used to cool melted nuclear rods from the destroyed reactors. The incident is just one example of the problems that have beset TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) in its efforts to clean up after the nuclear meltdown. Although the water had been partially treated and its radioactivity was only about 1% of what it had been, it was the large amount of water that leaked and the lack of any kind of safety buffer that has raised global concerns. Because the storage site is just a few hundred meters from the coast, the contaminated water may make its way into the ocean. Various remedies, including freezing or excavating the soil around the storage site, have been proposed. But due to the potential cost and difficulty involved, the Japanese government may need to step in.